Larry O’Donnell President and Chief Operating Officer
“With Larry as our most vocal coach, we started from a simple perspective of identifying vulnerabilities and opportunities.” Carlton Yearwood, chief ethics and diversity officer
“When you spend time with and work with a variety of people every day, you begin to see there is an amazingly rich variety to the ways
just the way it was around our place. “Later on, when I was a senior in
other. The crafts were like that. Each
high school, my dad singled out a spe-
seemed to draw talent from a particu-
cial work assignment for me. He gave
lar community, with their own values,
me the job of finishing construction on
language and work ethic.
five houses that were nearing comple-
“So really, early in my work life, I
tion. He told me, ‘Learn the job and
saw that people could make or break
learn the people.’ It was a challenge I
your business, and that learning how to
never forgot.
move a team of varied, talented people
“I had to figure out how to put
you can look at getting things done.” Larry O’Donnell
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who were truly different from each
together, motivate and manage work
toward a single, common goal was crucial to being successful.
teams that did different things—
“I found out that our customers
plumbing, cement work, carpentry,
were different, too. Each of the soon-to-
cabinetry—and that had tradespeople
be owners of the homes we were build-
Profiles in Diversity Journal September/October 2006